Practice This Week

I'm trying to rededicate myself to practice. Early this week I got kind of depressed about the lack of time I've been putting in...and promptly took a mental health day off of work and spent the better part of Wednesday sleeping or practicing. I still only got in about two hours on the drums and an hour on the bass...but it was good solid practice time. Thursday night rehearsal got cancelled and I hit a solid hour on the drums and a solid hour on the bass. On Wednesday I worked out the order and parts for the 5 songs the new band is going to rehearse next Monday plus trying to polish up 2 new tunes that the SSW are supposed to play for the Feb 14th gig. Then on Thursday I remembered a 3rd song we're supposed to play for that gig (They Might Be Giants, Why Does the Sun Shine?), and worked it up from scratch...even though it is a little tricky. By the end of the night on Thursday I felt like I had all 8 of the aforementioned songs in decent playing condition. There are future embellishments to be made for sure, but they are solid frameworks now. I feel alot better about Monday's pending rehearsal now.

On Wednesday on the bass I played some through the new Rock and Pop playalong book/cd I got. Put the disc on the Amazing Slow Downer and started to learn some of the songs. First song is "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Queen:

The part in this video is way better than in the book I bought...all these unneccessary shifts in the book:


Thursday night I played through the Pixies greatest hits disc complete with vocals...plus the couple of extra tunes RS said his band is working on. Need to decifer part on Break my Body more. It isn't hard, it's just got an unexpected rhythm and some tough quick shifts.

Anyway, I'm feeling better about things now. Getting the TMBG song was particularly rewarding because it has some tricky parts to it and I got it with just a few tries.

I just have to remember to keep plugging away. Every day. Put the time in. No pain, no gain. Improvement is directly proportional to the amount of time spent practicing. Progress will be quicker the more time I take to practice. Like magic.